PEMPAMSIE

Strength through
Unity

Habari Gani Parents or Guardians,

As your childs new third grade teacher for the upcoming 2016 2017 school year; I appreciate the
opportunity to introduce myself and provide you with a little of my professional background history. My name is
Mama Antionette Johnson this is my thirteenth year in education and at Timbuktu Academy of Science and
Technology. Im really excited about being your childs teacher and partnering with you as your child continues
on the path of academic and intellectual growth. So that, your child achieves his or her greatest academic ability
at the third grade level we (you and I) must be a team; working together to make sure he or she is prepared to learn
daily. So, I encourage you to visit your childs classroom as frequently as possible, drop by and have lunch, and
please plan to attend other scheduled meetings (information and dates will follow at a later date). In addition, I am
a big proponent of parent volunteers in the classroom. If you are interested in helping out in any way please first
visit the main office and then let me know. Your involvement is very important and coupled with my teaching
experience we can help your child do well academically and prepare for the Michigan state required examination.
This year they will enhance their second grade prior knowledge and academic abilities as they explore
many new concepts, topics, and develop skills; as they journey through the third grade curriculum. Homework
will be assigned every Thursday and is due back the following Thursday providing your child one solid week to
finish the entire packet. Most importantly, homework is a portion of your childs grade, it covers all four core
subjects (English Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies) and is a reinforcement of what has been taught in
class, prepares students for upcoming quizzes and tests, and helps students develop self-discipline, responsibility,
and organizational skills. Furthermore, students who regularly complete and turn in homework assignments
perform significantly better in school than those of similar ability who do not do homework (Olympia et al., 1994).
As a facilitator of education, part of my responsibilities involve helping your child develop scholarly and
technological skills that will continue to grow and improve, provide a safe learning environment, build character,
and guide them to a path of academic excellence in preparation for the sixth grade. I am truly passionate about
providing students with a technology enriched learning environment, hands-on activities, and real world
experiences in an effort to make learning fun and memorable. You will be informed of special activities and
projects in advance to provide ample opportunity for you to participate and/or buy the necessary materials.
Please find attached the Zula Course Outline, Supply List, Learning Agreement, and 2016-2017 Watoto
Information form required for your child's Classroom Academic Portfolio. If you have any questions or concerns,
I can be contacted via my email address athompson@timbuktuacademy.org or at (313)823-6000. I am always
willing to engage in conversations with the families of my students. You are the most important people in my
students lives! Lets work together to make sure your child gets all he or she needs to be successful this year!
Asante Sana (Thank You),
Mama Antionette Johnson
Reference: Olympia, D.E., Sheridan, S.M., Jenson, W.R., & Andrews, D. (1994). Using student-managed interventions to increase homework completion and
accuracy. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27, 85-99.

Zula Village
Course Outline

PEMPAMSIE
Strength through Unity

2016 - 2017

This year Timbuktu will continue using the Common Core State Standards; these standards define a staircase to
college and career readiness, building on the best of previous state standards/Michigan Grade Level Content
Expectations (GLCEs) and evidence from research best practices. Below is an overview of some of the
fundamental concepts and content your child will learn in Third grade English Language Arts/Literacy,
Mathematics, Science and Social Studies.

English Language Arts & Literacy

Students will read a number of chapter books and short stories covering various genres of fantasy, historical nonfiction and fiction, mystery, science fiction and real world text. They will also read a few tall tales from various
cultures. The various genres will keep students actively engaged in reading, as they read aloud to build reading
fluency and comprehension. In addition to having students being actively engaged in reading, students will be able
to connect to characters, analyze and discuss character behaviors, explain their thinking about characters, make
predictions, cite evidence from the text and become familiar with the usage of primary sources (photographs, maps,
video etc.). Your child will write short stories or essays using Step Up to Writing and 6 + 1 Writing Traits model;
devoting significant time and effort to producing numerous written pieces over short and extended timeframes
throughout the year, also he or she will build their vocabulary knowledge and gain control over the many
conventions of grammar, usage, and punctuation as well as learn ways to make their written expression
comprehensible while building sentence fluency.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS STUDENT WILL EMPLOY

Learn and apply strategies for notetaking that will aid with taking writing organized notes, using boxes and
bullets, which will set up their thinking for writing and talking about the information they are learning
Write stories, real or imaginary, in which they establish a situation and introduce a narrator or characters.
Using details including dialogue, descriptions of actions, thoughts, and feelings, use temporal words and
phrases to signal event order, and provide a sense of closure
Summarize the key details of stories, dramas, poems, and nonfiction materials, including the themes or
main ideas
Expand, combine, and reduce sentences to improve meaning, interest, and style of writing using standard
English grammar
Explain the function of nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs in general and their functions in
particular sentences
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and phrases based on grade 3
reading and content

Mathematics
Students will build upon work from previous grades as they use place value understanding and properties of
operations to perform multi-digit arithmetic and gain fluency adding and subtracting within 1,000. Furthermore, a
key focus of this grade is developing an understanding of the meaning of multiplication and division. Beginning
with equal-sized groups and arrays, students will explore problems involving single-digit multiplication and
division within 100. Later in the school year, they will apply properties of operations as strategies to multiply and
divide including multiplying one and two-digit whole numbers by multiples of ten. Apply concepts of
multiplication, addition, and linear measurement to create new understandings of area and perimeter. In addition,
to generating measurement data with fractional lengths and partitioning shapes into parts with equal areas, students
will spend a considerable amount of time developing an understanding of fractions as numbers. Moreover, they
will continue to develop more skills in reasoning with shapes and shape attributes; as they explore shapes in
different categories, students learn that shared attributes define larger categories. They use skills from throughout
this grade to solve problems involving data and measurement including the contexts of time, liquid volume, mass,
and scaled graphs.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS STUDENT WILL EMPLOY

Use words, symbols, and some combination of the two to write, build, and speak numbers (e.g., 5327 = 5
thousands + 3 hundreds + 2 tens + 7 ones) and write equivalent numbers using standard and expanded
notation
Read, write, compare, and order numbers up to one hundred thousand
Understand place value and use this understanding to support fluency adding and subtracting within 1000
Developed strategies to add and subtract multi-digit numbers within 1000
Develop an understanding of inverse operations, use procedures (i.e., algorithms) with connections to
mathematical meaning and use estimation (e.g., rounding numbers to the nearest 10 or 100) to solve
problems
Make connections and distinctions between their understandings of addition and subtraction and their
understandings of multiplication and division
Use unit fractions to build other fractions and represent fractions with a variety of continuous visual models
using these models as tools to compare fractions, including equivalent fractions, fractions equal to one, and
fractions greater than one
Use a variety and standard measurement tools (e.g., rulers) as they practice increasing the precision to
which they measure objects

Social Studies
Students will be introduced to the history, geography, government, and economy of Michigan. Students learn about
people and events from the past that have influenced the state in which they live. They will study the geography of
Michigan including the physical and cultural characteristics of different areas of the state. Using the context of
their state, students will explore human-environment interactions and their consequences. Viewing Michigan
through geographic lens, students also will examine the movement of people, products, and ideas across the state,
and investigate how Michigan can be divided into distinct regions. They will explore how Michiganians support
themselves through the production, consumption, and distribution of goods and services. Students will discover
how their state is an interdependent part of both the national and global economies as they explore and study
economic ties between Michigan and other places. Students will also be introduced to the state governments
purposes, structure, and functions as they delve into the relationship between rights and responsibilities of citizens.
Finally, they will examine current real world issues facing Michigan residents and practice making and expressing
informed decisions as citizens.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS STUDENT WILL EMPLOY

Explore the five major themes of geography: movement, region, human/environment interaction, location
and place
Explore the principles and concepts of economics through the lens of Michigan today
Develop an understanding of the economic principles of scarcity, choice, and opportunity costs
Use primary and secondary sources of information to explore the early history of Michigan
Explore the growth of Michigan after statehood using prior knowledge of the concepts of geography,
economics, and the early history
Explore how natural resources such as fertile soil, trees, and minerals influenced certain businesses to take
root in Michigan
Explore push and pull factors of migration that led to population growth in Michigan and how different
cultural groups have created unique regions within the state
Examine the purposes of government and ways in which the government of Michigan works by exploring
the concept of representative government and distinguishing the roles of state government from local
government
Investigate how the powers of government are separated among the branches in state government and
explore a variety of public issues in the local community, identifying various points of view, and applying
core democratic values

Science
Student will use an inquiry-based learning method to engage, explore, explain, extend (or elaborate), and evaluate
the four disciplines in science: Science Processes, Physical Science, Life Science, and Earth Science. They have
the opportunities to design and conduct their own investigations and create models to explain observable events as
well as engage in scientific collaborative dialogue using science vocabulary, materials and tools. They will apply
science content to engineering/design challenges and develop skill in scientific communication through the use of
reading science information and writing in science notebooks. In physical science students explore the
relationships between balanced and unbalanced forces and the impact on the motion of objects. They will also
study light and sound, relate structures in plants and animals to functions that support survival and develop an
understanding of fundamental earth materials and how humans depend on these for energy and other resources.
Lastly, they will explore surface processes and the human impact of resource extraction.

BASIC KNOWLEDGE AND SKILLS STUDENT WILL EMPLOY

Plan and conduct an investigation to provide evidence of the effects of balanced and unbalanced forces on
the motion of an object

Analyze and interpret data from fossils to provide evidence of the organisms and the environments in which
they lived long ago
Develop models to describe that organisms have unique and diverse life cycles but all have in common
birth, growth, reproduction, and death
Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence that plants and animals have traits inherited from parents
and that variation of these traits exists in a group of similar organisms
Use evidence to construct an explanation for how the variations in characteristics among individuals of the
same species may provide advantages in surviving, finding mates, and reproducing

Mama Antionettes

Third Grade Classroom Supply List

Please do not put names on the village/community supplies, as they are shared by
the entire class throughout the year and helps us practice the principle of Ujaama
(Cooperative Economics)!
All students should have the following by Monday, September 19, 2016:

Village/Community Supplies:
60 #2 Pencils (Please No Mechanical)
5 Packs wide ruled loose leaf paper
4 Glue sticks
4 Large boxes of facial tissue

Personal/Individual Supplies:
1 Pack colored pencils and/or
crayons
1 Pack blue or black ink pens
(Preferably Erasable)

3 Bottles of hand soap or sanitizer

2 Pocket folder

3 Containers of disinfectant wipes

4 Composition notebooks
1 Journal or an additional
composition notebook
2 Large Pinky erasers
(Please No Pencil Cap Style)
4 Highlighters (different colors)

Classroom Wish List:

Parent Volunteers who will assist in the classroom is always a plus; please check with the
front office for the correct procedures.
Recess items (jump ropes, sidewalk chalk, etc.)